Le chat botté

A cunning cat wins for his master a castle, a fortune, and the hand of a princess.

Charles Perrault first published his collection of classic French folk tales 300 years ago, including "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," and this entertaining story about a most clever feline. In Puss and Boots, a poor miller dies and leaves his youngest son nothing but a cat. The son is none too happy about it, either; " ...once I've eaten my cat and made a muff out of the fur, I'm sure to starve," he says. But what a legacy the bequeathed cat turns out to be! The cat in tall boots creates a new identity for the youngest son--the Marquis of Carabas, complete with fine clothes, fields of wheat, a castle stolen from an ogre, and in the end, the respect of the king and the hand of the king's daughter. The story itself is gracefully and humorously told, and the text, set in large gray type, adds an old-fashioned air to the tale. ABOUT AUTHOR: Charles Perrault was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his Histoires ou contes du temps passé.--Wikipedia Born: Jan 12, 1628, Paris, France Died: May 16, 1703, Paris, France